VS. JOSE DELEVERIO, ACCUSED-.

Ruling

WHEREFORE, premises considered, this Court finds the accused, JOSE DELEVERIO, 58 years old, GUILTY beyond any shadows of doubts of committing two (2) counts of Rape[s], one committed on April 7, 1994 and the other committed on May 13, 1994, against his own eight (8) years old grand-step-daughter, Roxan Binarao which two (2) crimes are defined and penalized under Article 335 of the Revised Penal Code as amended by Republic Act No. 7659 of 1993 and hereby sentences him to suffer two (2) extreme and supreme penalties of DEATH. And to pay the total amount of P 60,000.00 for both cases as moral damages and the costs of these proceedings. IT IS SO ORDERED . [11] In this automatic review, appellant assigned a lone error; i.e., that - THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN FINDING ACCUSED-APPELLANT JOSE DELEVERIO GUILTY BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT OF HAVING COMMITTED RAPE ON TWO COUNTS [12] and reminded that - The Court has stressed time and again that in view of the severity of the penalties for the offense of rape, justified by the `traumatic consequences for the unfortunate victim and grievous injury to the peace and good order of the community, there is need `for extreme care on the part of the judiciary to avoid an injustice done to an accused. For it is equally true that this is an offense to which, as is often the case, only two people can testify, thus requiring the most conscientious effort on the part of the arbiter to weigh and appraised the conflicting testimony. If a reasonable doubt exists, the verdict must be one of acquittal. It must be borne in mind that it is an accusation easy to be made, hard to be proved but harder to be defended by the accused, though innocent. The evidence for conviction must be clear and convincing to overcome the constitutional presumption of innocence. [13] Appellant would consider it rather strange that the complainant did not even attempt to wake up his brother Ramon, to whom she later confided the incidents and said to be sleeping all the while in the same room with her, when she was being sexually assaulted by the accused. [14] As usual, in a prosecution for rape, the credibility of the victim is almost always the single and most important issue to hurdle. If her testimony meets the test of credibility, the accused can justifiably be convicted on the basis thereof; [15] otherwise, he should be acquitted of the crime. Corroborative testimony, frequently unavailable in rape cases, is not essential to warrant a conviction for the crime. In the instant case, the trial court gave its own assessment on the credibility of Roxan; it said: This Court also found that this Roxan Binarao, an eight-year-old-second grade pupil, to be a very competent witness, because her testimonies, in open Court were not punctured with serious inconsistencies as to lead this Court to believe that she [had] been coached to make known her perception of the traumatic incident x x x. While it is true that she sometimes commits inconsistencies in h